Spokane _ The Washington Health Department says it can't help clarify
the state's new medical marijuana law because it can't study the drug without
getting busted.

State Secretary of Health Mary Selecky has rejected a request by 28
lawmakers for the Health Department to try again to set up medical-marijuana
research the Legislature called for in 1979 and again in 1996.

"The study was never performed because we were unable to secure a legal
source of marijuana," Selecky said in a recent letter to legislators, including
Spokane Sens. Lisa Brown and Bob McCaslin.

Federal law prohibits marijuana use even in states that have authorized
medical use, and federal officials have the only legal supply for researchers.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse provides marijuana for research,
but Selecky said federal research guidelines "appear to be set up to provide
legal marijuana only for the development of new, non-smoked, pharmaceutical
products."

Selecky said developing a new marijuana-based drug would be enormously
expensive, inconsistent with the Health Department's mission and unlikely
to solve the problems with Initiative 692, which voters passed in November
1998 to allow medical use of marijuana. Instead, Selecky tossed the issue
back to the Legislature.

"It ... appears that the inadequacies of the initiative language on
several important issues, such as identification of legitimate patients
and caregivers and the definition of a 60-day supply, may require a legislative
solution," Selecky said.

Initiative 692 says simply that, with a physician's approval, a person
may have a 60-day supply of marijuana to treat "chemotherapy-related nausea
and vomiting in cancer patients; AIDS wasting syndrome; severe muscle spasms
associated with multiple sclerosis and other spasticity disorders; epilepsy;
acute or chronic glaucoma; and some forms of intractable pain."

The law implies patients may buy marijuana on the street and says they
may grow their own or have a "caregiver" grow it for them. But it doesn't
say how much a 60-day supply is.

The question of how much is enough has been the most vexing issue for
police, prosecutors and courts in several recent cases in northeastern
Washington. Authorities have taken the position that medical marijuana
users or caregivers must prove they aren't growing so much pot they have
some left over for sale or recreational use.

There is no scientific answer to the question of quantity, said Janet
Joy, a doctor of neuroscience and behavior who directed a National Institute
of Medicine review last year on medical-marijuana research.

Joy's study found that limited research, much of it on animals, clearly
shows potential for medical use of marijuana. However, the study also found
smoking marijuana to be a "crude" way of delivering the drug, and one that
delivers cancer-causing, fetus-damaging byproducts.

The report called for more research on medical marijuana but said the
goal should be to develop an inhaler or some other rapid, effective way
of delivering the tetrahydro-cannabinol (THC) drug contained in marijuana
plants.

Joy said such research is getting started in Canada and the United Kingdom,
where a 1998 study for the House of Lords came to many of the same conclusions
as the U.S. study Joy directed. But little has been done so far in the
United States.

Unless legislators or state agencies tackle the problem, the job of
determining appropriate medical uses and quantities rests with courts in
the half-dozen states that have passed medical-marijuana laws. The Washington
Legislature has twice failed to pass bills directing the Health Department
to conduct hearings and adopt regulations.

Even if state guidelines were in place, medical marijuana users would
have to rely on the discretion of U.S. attorneys not to prosecute them
under federal law. Federal prosecutors typically focus on large-scale drug
dealers.

John Craig may be contacted at (509) 459-5429, or by e-mail at johnc@spokesman.com.